1. Field of the Invention
The subject of the present invention is a process for the continuous welding of railroad rail sections during the laying down thereof, and a train set particularly equipped in order to carry out this process.
2. Description of Related Art
According to the conventional procedure in laying down the railroad rails, the rail sections, usually coming from the manufacturing factory in lengths of 36 meters, are welded abutting in succession one after the other to form sections of 144 meters, which are transported to the laying place. There, after having been laid down by an operating train, the sections are welded abutting in succession one after the other in order to form final lengths of 288 or 432 meters, or any other fixed length. The welding is done by an electric spark process, or by an aluminothermic process, onto the already laid down rails. Conventionally, the rail sections to be laid down were laid onto the ground alongside the railroad line, but it is already known through improvements already introduced that the rail sections having the length of 144 meters are charged onto special trucks on which also the ties are carried, and which are provided with guides for a portal crane, used for transporting the ties to be laid down and, in case, the removed old ties. The rails are charged in a position underlying the charge of ties, and both the rails and the ties are fed to a special machine, being a part of the operating train, which provides for laying down the new rails and ties, possibly after removing the old ties and rails to be replaced, and in case for effecting other operations too. However, the welding of already laid down rail sections should be performed by a spark welding machine mounted onto a special railroad truck which operates following the operating train, but such a machine is very expensive and needs skilled personnel. Moreover, rather complicated operations, special equipment and correspondingly skilled personnel are needed in order to arrange to line and level the ends of the rail sections to be welded, and to keep the ends of the rail sections being laid pushed against the ends of the already laid down rail sections. It is also necessary that rest plates and correspondingly fixing screws are temporarily dismounted from the ties (and subsequently mounted again), which are included in the region in which the head of the welding machine is required to operate.